The Sports Reverends - Season 24/25 - Episode 18 - A NOT SO ALL STAR, NBA ALL STAR WEEKEND!

[00:00:14] The Sports Reverends Podcast. My name is Dan and I'm joined with my big bro. Around here we know him as the coach. He is not only a coach on the basketball court, he's also a coach in the stock markets as well. I am a reverend pastor downtown Toronto, also chaplain of Toronto Fire. We got a special show for you today. It'll be an all star level show. I will say that. I'll say that. You know what I'm doing.

[00:00:44] A lot of podcasts will give you something to take away. Some will help you with your fitness. Some will help you make money. Some will make you laugh. Some will take you down a murder mystery. We got something better than all that put together. We actually have the solution to every single one of your problems. And I genuinely say that as true. This isn't some sort of gimmick. Isn't some sort of a let me get your money from you kind of podcast. No, we want to offer you the solution and the source that's helped us

[00:01:14] out of all of our problems has helped us out of the mud has helped us out of all the challenges that we've faced in life. And we want to share that with you. And that is our faith in Christ. And we call ourselves the sports reverends because sports has played a huge role in our faith in Christ. Sports has helped us develop in so many ways. It's helped us learn and learn how to learn to grow from our mistakes, learn how to put some of our practices into actions.

[00:01:42] And it's just been an integral part to us growing in our faith. And we want to share some of that with you today. So if this is your first time tuning in, welcome to the show. If you've been here for a long time, shout out Colin Beauchamp. Shout out Doc Madass. You know, we love you guys. We're glad you tune in all the time and we appreciate you. Now let's get into it. You know what? Actually first, coach, how are you doing? How's your week going?

[00:02:06] I love it. Week's been good. It's a lot of snow though. A lot of snow. And that's made things very difficult transportation wise. But that's okay. It feels like Winnipeg. Feels like Winnipeg. How's your week been? You know, it's probably been the most snow we've had since being here for us since 2017. So it's pretty wild. It's amazing how the city shuts down compared to where we grew up in Winnipeg. But you know what? We're making it through it. We're having a lot of good fun here.

[00:02:35] And I'm excited for a fun show today. Why don't you give us a little rundown of the show and we'll dive in. Absolutely. Always down for a good show here. We got our quick hitters as always. Then we are going to talk NBA All-Star Game. For some of you, this is a staple of what makes you happy. From other you, from other guys, it's like, eh, I can skip it. We'll chat highs, lows, and our thoughts on that. And the best part of the show, real talk, we'll be looking at two ways.

[00:03:02] Motivated or unmotivated. Or motivated or mundane. What does your faith look like? Or we want our faith to be abnormal. So it was a little strange way to say it when we talk about our faith. Abnormal. We'll talk about that as we hit towards the end of the show. Why don't you start us off with our first quick hitter? All right. Some tough news if you're a Jays fan here. Ademir Guerrero Jr. and the Blue Jays have failed to reach a contract extension. So he could be a free agent in November. Does that mean he can't sign with the Jays?

[00:03:32] But there'll be a lot of suitors potentially looking for that bet. Steph Curry was presented with the Kobe Bryant Trophy as this year's All-Star MVP. Canada will face off against USA in the inaugural Four Nations Face-Off Championship Thursday. Thursday. Thursday. At the TD Gardens. Austin. Hopefully no booing of any anthems.

[00:03:57] Kyrie Irving, back into the news, wants to play for Team Australia for Olympic Basketball in 2028. He's represented the Team USA in the 2016 Rio Games. And Auburn in the number one AP Top 25 for the sixth straight week in men's college basketball. Pretty impressive. Chuck must be happy. Chuck must be happy. Chuck.

[00:04:26] All right, Coach, let's handle some business before we dive in. As mentioned earlier, I am a coach when it comes to the stock market. And as a good coach, I want to equip my team with the skills necessary to be successful on and off the court. And in this case, we're talking about your finances. If you are looking for a second source of income, if you're looking to figure out what's an RRSP, what's a TFSA, what's a 401k, what should I be doing with my extra capital? Should I be investing?

[00:04:56] What should I do it? The who, what, when, where, why, and how? That's what we do here at Train to Invest. We look to make you, the novice, into an expert. We've taught everybody from people who haven't finished high school to doctors and accountants. We've taught the young. We've taught the old. So do not disqualify yourself based on anything like that.

[00:05:18] Our job is, again, to teach you the necessary skills to be successful in the stock market and to do it on your own and take out the middleman's cut. Reach out to us at www.train2invest.com. So that's train2invest.com. And download our free e-book. Check it out. Give it a read. And connect with us. And one of our representatives will get back to you and see if we're the right fit for you.

[00:05:45] And if we're going to help you achieve what you want to achieve. www.train2invest.com. Check out the e-book. And we'll look forward to chatting with you soon. Coach, can I ask a question? Always. You know, we have this $10,000 GIC that's been sitting with Scotiabank for seven years. And it's grown all the way to $11,200. Woohoo! Woohoo!

[00:06:10] Have we been intelligent with our safe GIC at Scotiabank? You would have been the guy that Jesus gave in the parable, the third set of talents to, and he buried it in the sand. You have not been a good steward with your capital. Let's say it's about 10%. Maybe we'll call it 11%. And inflation over that seven period of time has eaten up into your growth. So you're probably negative, all things considered.

[00:06:38] So there's opportunity for you to do better. So you're saying we should dive into some train to invest and see how we can actually grow our capital. 100%. 100%. Check us out on the course. Go through your and do your homework and we'll get you going. All right. Thanks, Coach. I know you're working hard on it. I know you're working hard on it. Let's go. Let's go. All right. We're into the all-star weekend. Can I start it off?

[00:07:04] I want to start it off because I want to give you the field here because I think we got one of my favorite parts of the show coming. All right. I want to start it off because all-star weekend, NBA, they did so well leading up to the Super Bowl of stealing the spotlight. They had all the momentum with the trades and the Raptors were happy and the big trade of Luka and AD.

[00:07:30] All this momentum, all eyes on NBA, which is a rare thing during NFL season. As the NFL fumbled their opportunity as they led into the Super Bowl, the NBA has now made another turnover themselves. As the NHL has taken the sports world by storm. Canada, USA, three fights in nine seconds.

[00:07:57] It's amazing, amazing competition of this four nations, this inaugural season. And it's just been incredible hockey to watch. These all-stars are giving their best. They are passionate about winning this cup for their country. Now the NBA had this wonderful all-star weekend filled with all the gimmicks you can possibly think of.

[00:08:23] And it was pretty much a total complete failure. Not just from ratings, not just from viewership, but just the actual product was a failure. And I'm so sick of all-star weekends. I used to love this. It used to be a dream of ours to go to an all-star weekend. Yeah. Now I do not care. So coach, it's time for you and you guys get ready here. Here it is. Here it is. I'm going to zoom in on him here. This is the old man rant that we need.

[00:08:54] Okay? Here we go. Okay. I'll start off positive then. I'll start off positive before we wade into the water here. I loved the format. I loved the idea of having the four different teams, semifinals, and then to a final. I think that brought some difference. And I think people were excited for different because we had to find a way to get the players engaged. Now how they made up the teams up for debate.

[00:09:20] And again, Shaq, Kenny, Chuck have played an integral part of our lives growing up through basketball. So sure. They picked the teams and Candace Parker, I don't know. You got Candace Parker in there for some reason. Here we go. I'm ready now. And like you said, it was a complete failure in execution. The two semifinal games were 1000% more interesting, more competitive, and captured people's attention than the final. How does that happen?

[00:09:50] We're not talking about a one versus eight seat here in the final. We're talking about really good NBA players going up against other good NBA players. And you'd think, hmm, it's first to 40. There's going to be some pride involved. And it just slipped away. First problem. The Mr. Beast thing. They didn't really have an idea of how that was going to turn out. I feel happy for the kid who won 100k. Like, don't get me wrong. I think that's incredible. Phenomenal.

[00:10:16] Execution wise, a random person off the street has a chance to make one three pointer versus Dame Lillard to make three. The fact that Dame lost, I don't know if he was rooting for the kid or not, but like, it just doesn't make sense. They were deep threes. They were deep. And they were very deep threes. They were. They were. But, I mean, he's a good three point shooter. I think it also helped him up for the game. He's logo Lillard. Helped him up for the game. Yeah. Yeah. But it just took too long.

[00:10:45] And after the kid won, it took too long to get them off the court. Next, you got Draymond Green saying, oh, this format sucks. It sucks. It hurts the guys who want to get the scoring record for the All-Star game. And I think Chuck said it absolutely correctly. It's because of players like you, Draymond, who've ruined the All-Star game by not trying, that we've had to do something drastically different and drastically new. Right? The Elam ending, interesting concept, brought something different.

[00:11:15] But then we saw three quarters of guys just goofing around. Right? We had this up to 40. I could talk about a lot of pride. You could see Wemby trying hard. You could see the young guys trying hard. And that pushed the other guys to play hard as well because everybody wants to win. But for Draymond Green to come up on live national TV and just spout off nonsense to the global audience, that's not being an ambassador of the game. Why are you bad talking this new format? You should be saying, oh, this is great.

[00:11:45] You should be, even if you don't believe it, you've got to be pushing the positivity of the product. Have an open mind. Have an open mind. Have an open mind. That's like me saying, hey, there's a new TV coming out. It's absolutely trash compared to this model over here because the pixels are bigger. But this is where we're going. How is that going to sell the game? How many non-regular NBA watchers are going to say, oh, this makes zero sense to me now.

[00:12:14] Why is one of their own trashing the game? That's not a good brand ambassador. Adam Silver, get your head right. Do not put Draymond Green on any more of these shows. No more halftime shows. No more of this jumping in and saying or being on the desk when he's injured. Don't care. That's a big, major fumble. His buddy LeBron maybe didn't play, so maybe Draymond was a little hurt that way. But it doesn't matter.

[00:12:41] Draymond, I don't want to see him in any sort of crew ever again because he does not know how to push the right way of the game. You want to grow it. You got to sell it. We need somebody exciting. Next, Kevin Hart. Kevin Hart, I know you're not listening to this podcast, but that's okay. This message is for you. That was probably the dumbest performance I've seen in my entire life coming from you. And you've done some really bad movies and TV shows. Number one, making fun of SGA's shoes on the day it drops.

[00:13:10] Who do you think you are, bro? Makes zero sense. And then making fun of the players while they're playing. You could see so many guys were annoyed. And it's like him and Shaq, you got... I saw one article which is Kevin's got a high-pitched squeaky voice and you got... From Shaq. It's like it doesn't make sense. They don't work as a pairing. Shaq's not that funny. Like, it was just... Honestly, I wanted to turn it off because Kevin made it so bad. He made it so bad. He has no...

[00:13:39] He doesn't understand how to work with the panel. I could tell Ernie... At least my perception was Ernie and Kenny and Shaq were kind of like, what's he even doing here? Mm-hmm. It was very awkward and it didn't make sense. Then we go... Okay, we get through the two games. You do the Mr. Beast thing. Kevin Hart's being ridiculous. We get going on the finals and the OGs just come out flying. Come out flying. And it looks like, oh man, they could have gone 40-0.

[00:14:09] It looked amazing. The other team didn't quite put anything up there, but the OGs were ready to go. And then we have this really weird break at the halftime show. Halftime. Where no one knows what's going on. They're honoring Kenny, Shaq, and Chuck of the TNT crew and Ernie. Giving them gone fishing things and got like... I think the first part of it was okay. Like the jersey thing and maybe the ring. That's fine.

[00:14:38] I'm talking about the timing of when they put that in. They should have done that at the very beginning. The very beginning. Honor these guys. They've been a lot... We grew up with them. A lot of people grew up with them. They're probably the best group of TV commentators when it comes to basketball. Honor them at the beginning. Yeah. Don't stop the game. And I would honor them without the fishing stuff. You know? Yeah, that was... Like I think you could see them actually being emotional about it. Because they've put like years into this thing, right?

[00:15:06] I would have... The fishing stuff, just the right time and right place. You could have done that at like the... In between one of the games or whatever. Where you could say, all right, we got one more gift for you guys. Time for you guys to go fishing. But that's like later on, right? You know? Like I think it was a bad timing. It was just read the room kind of moment. Read the room. And it just killed the momentum of the game. And so that made it very, very difficult to watch. Because it's like, okay. And you could even see the players who were playing. And players have said it. Hey, we just kind of lost interest.

[00:15:35] And it wasn't really well thought out. Then you got Ant and LeBron. Maybe hours before the game saying, I'm not going to play. Unbelievable. Which I think is one of the most egregious things for the All-Star game. If you know you're not going to play, you know this a day or two in advance. If there's a question you're not going to play, right? Like just give someone else the chance. Chance. Like, yes, you've earned your All-Star nod.

[00:16:03] You got the checkmark for your contract status towards the Supermax. And whatever kind of escalators you have. Great. But let some other guys come in. I mean, it's so hard to pick enough guys to fill out the All-Star team. Because there's so many worthy players. You could have easily found another OG to put in there. Easily. So I think that was really bad. And then again, the last piece here that really drove me nuts was the performances. Nobody knew.

[00:16:33] Like, it was a bunch of old heads, which is fine. But like, I don't need to see four ladies who were definitely not in shape. Dressed in very tight clothing. Free your mind. Come on, you know that one. I know that. But all this stuff is, and the guys rapping and whatever. It just didn't flow well. It just didn't flow well. It should have been cut in half the time-wise. And I get we want to celebrate the Bay Area and artists.

[00:17:01] But it's like, does your audience care about these people? Maybe. But not the TV audience, right? No. The Bay Area audience. The people in the Bay Area would be great. They love it. They go wild nuts. The rest of the audience, no one cares. Would you have been okay with that performance if it happened before all the games? Or even at the end, after they give the trophies out. It made it way too long.

[00:17:30] It made it way too difficult. And it really, really healed the enjoyment of watching the All-Star game. I haven't watched an All-Star game in quite some time. I put it on the TV in the background. I kind of half-lessed to it. The Elam ending one, I kind of watched the end because that was cool. The first time. The first time. Yeah. Yeah, right? Because that was different. But it's really since the 2010s, the game has just become a joke.

[00:17:56] And from what I heard on different media outlets, the NBA said, take this game seriously. And then for them to say that and then to have that production value, it doesn't make sense. And so you're right. The inability of the NBA to capture the moment with the big Luka trade that dominated the trade deadline, dominated the NFL.

[00:18:17] You have hockey, which is a much smaller market, getting more popularity because it's got a cool and well-executed All-Star break thing. This Four Nations Cup is really cool and drives a lot of momentum. But the NBA fumble bag, big time, big time. And whoever takes a look at this and does a recap needs to understand that it's not about the acts. It's about the game. People want to watch the game.

[00:18:47] People want to be entertained. It's three and a half hours to watch 35 minutes of basketball. Who's got time for that? So was I disappointed? 100%. At the All-Star game. I do think the dunk contest was interesting. Mark Klung did a great job. Does that raise the question of getting professional dunkers in there? Potentially. Three-point shootout. You got Tyler Hero knocking out Dame's attempt for the three-peat. And the skills challenge. Well, as a Spurs fan, it was kind of embarrassing. You're embarrassed?

[00:19:17] Oh, wow. Okay. Only because I'm embarrassed because they didn't get away with it. I thought it was genius. Yeah, yeah. I really did. I thought it was genius. But because they got disqualified, it kind of sucks. But up until that point, NBA All-Star weekend was ramping up, ramping up, ramping up. The events were good. The competition was good. Had a bit of drama with the DQ. And then to lay an egg with the All-Star game? Very disappointing. You know, it's like...

[00:19:46] What's the vegetable that you like that I hate? Brussels sprouts. Brussels sprouts. It's like Brussels sprouts. Okay. Brussels sprouts, to me, to a lot of people... Like, it used to be where Brussels sprouts, they're like the old commercials and stuff. It'd be like, I taste like Brussels sprouts. It's gross. It's yucky. Yeah. But over the years, Brussels sprouts have been made... Like, the way they've cooked them, the way they've presented them in different dishes and different styles over the years.

[00:20:16] Now, they're one of the most popular appetizers on many, many, many restaurants' menus. Right? They took a product. That was theirs. It's a very nutritious product for you. It's very good. And they turned it into something where most people enjoy. I still don't like them. I'll take the bacon part. That's it. But most people like them. Okay? Yeah. Like, how can you take this product of the best athletes?

[00:20:42] Like, it's a little different than NFL and NHL because these guys are freaks of nature. All right? Some of them are 7'3 and have the agility of a 6-footer. Like, they're insanely different kind of athletes. Spectacles. That's what it is. And they just lay this kind of egg. And it's just really disappointing. You know, like we said, I used to be so excited for All-Star Weekend. Now, it's just like, I don't care.

[00:21:09] I didn't even watch the All-Star Saturday. I didn't. I caught the highlights later because I didn't care. I just wanted to see how it is. And I'm glad most people's reports were like they enjoyed All-Star Saturday. It was a respectable All-Star Saturday once again. So, maybe they figured that out. But Sunday was horrible. Disaster. Disaster.

[00:21:36] And I think the idea was to get players more involved. And they did. But execution was poor. So, let us know in the comments. Yeah. Yeah. Let us know what you guys think of All-Star Game. I would love to hear that. We'd love to hear your thoughts. Maybe you just tuned it out totally. But it is a good lead-in into our real talk. Yes. Lead-in in coaching. Yeah. Okay. Guys, I know you got. I think we started off with, I'm not sure. But I think something's percolating in your brain and I want to hear it.

[00:22:31] Yeah. You got the idea of the NBA players showing up, goofing around, and going home. You want it to be passionate, exciting. Like what we see the Four Nations Cup with guys going all out for the win. Yeah. Yeah, what sparked something in my mind from our conversation was when you're talking about Draymond Green. Draymond Green, before the product even was put out, is trashing the product. He's saying it's garbage. He's giving it all the hate.

[00:23:00] And I think a lot of people from the outside perspective look at Christianity in that kind of light, right? They have their mind already made up, their decisions already made, and judgment already made about the product of Christianity. And as a Christ follower, you know, is it my job to just say, oh, they're just haters, you know, forget them?

[00:23:21] Or is there a better way for me to show them that this whole Christianity is a lot different than what they expect and a lot different, maybe even in some of their past experiences? You know, I think for these all-star players, first of all, shame on them for not trying, right? Basketball will always be a privilege, and they're spitting in that privilege. And I get that, you know, it's a long season. They're thinking about money. They're thinking about the playoffs.

[00:23:50] But this is people, you are, you know, I love what like Jordan and Kobe, they want to leave the game better than how they lived it out. Yeah. And these all-stars, you know, I think they're not taking that to heart anymore. I think when it comes to, you know, motivating and being motivated in your faith, or maybe your Christian walk is mundane.

[00:24:15] I think I shared it last Sunday that, you know, I can probably, if I do my best job, if I do a really good job, I can get you motivated. That motivation, if it's my greatest job that Sunday, it will get you to as far as maybe Wednesday. You'll be motivated till Wednesday. Most of the time, you're going to be motivated till the end of Sunday. That's it. By Monday, it's all forgotten. A lot of the times, it's forgotten by the time you walk out the doors or by the time you turn off the YouTube.

[00:24:45] I don't ever want to be a motivator. My prayer is that the Word of God, the touch of the Holy Spirit, it inspires you in all that you do. You know, you can tell the difference with a player who's inspired to play than one that is motivated by money, than one that is even just playing just because that's all they know what to do. You can tell a difference. You can tell the heartbeat. You can totally tell that with a Christ follower as well.

[00:25:14] I'll pass it to you for a bit here, Coach. Yeah. I think your decision on how to live out your faith has to come from you. Like you said, you don't want to be a motivator because it's just like everybody who does their resolutions on January. Oh, man, New Year's. Okay, I'm going to lose weight. I'm going to do this. I'm going to read this many books a month. I failed mine already. I failed mine. Without commitment and without an understanding of why you're doing this, you won't see the result.

[00:25:44] Like, I want to lose 20 pounds. Okay, is it because I just have a random resolution? Or I know that if I lose 20 pounds, my health is going to get better. And just by making small changes, I can do that. The same with your faith. If you don't want to be excited for it, you won't be. If you don't want to be passionate about it, you won't be. And that's just simply as, oh, read your Bible and pray every day. That's a song most of us are going to grow up learning.

[00:26:12] If reading your Bible is a chore because in your mind it's like, oh, I just have to do this. You're not going to get what God has ready for you, right? You're just limiting yourself and you're just being a rookie forever. And what we've been challenging everybody for the last year now, I would say, is how do we go from a rookie to an all-star?

[00:26:37] And that takes effort, that takes work, but it also takes desire. And what your faith journey looks like is going to be different than somebody else's. Daniel's faith journey is different than mine. We have different struggles. We have different challenges. And that doesn't mean that one of ours is better than the other. It's just different. But it's that pursuit of God and how we look to make that part of our life grow and expand, which is important.

[00:27:06] Daniel was called to be a pastor. God knew that I would hate my life if that was my job. I'm just not suited for that. So he calls me in a different way. And what's really special is that if you look through the Bible, there are so many instances of people who are imperfect, who don't have all the talents and skills, who don't have high positions to start off with. What they do have in common is that they're obedient and they pursue God. And God uses them in mighty ways, right?

[00:27:34] And so we often think to ourselves, okay, I got up. I prayed. Went to work. Did my thing. Came home. Watched TV. Hang out with the family. That's mundane living. We want you to be abnormal. We want you to be motivated. We want you to take that step of faith and be obedient. Yeah. I got two thoughts from you for that. There's the, our, we're a little bit older than the younger young adults nowadays.

[00:28:02] And they actually get to look at us and see how we are operating, how we're living our lives. And if they see us being a bad example of living out our faith, you know, are they going to take it seriously themselves if they look up to us? Right. You see the, the Katie's, the older guys, the OG's. I know they won the whole thing, but did they really take it all seriously? Did they set the tone? That's why I loved seeing Wem be so upset at the end of the game.

[00:28:30] You know, he came in because he wanted to show off his best ability against the other best players in the world. But if they're not going to, like, it's, it's, it's not, it's not even going to happen. You're not, you're not getting to test your skills at that level if they're not going to put it in. Right. So if the same thing in our faith, you know, our, if we're not showing off our, our, our best ability to live it out and to, to represent the right way. Why would they, you know, why would they, we're setting the tone. Right.

[00:28:59] And they're, they're supposed to be our brothers. Another thought that I had was, you know, you can train and work out and, and, and try to get better at basketball. But some people aren't working on the right things. We've said it a long time. Ben Simmons, Russell Westbrook. They still haven't developed their jump shot. What they do in the gym, like they're, they're athletic freaks. They're hard. Westbrook's a hard worker. He's one of the dogs out there. You have to give them that.

[00:29:26] But for him to have not developed a jump shot still is mind boggling to me. Same thing with your faith. The way you train and the way you get better. No, it's less about your inner will. It's less about your abilities. It's learning how to be obedient. It's learning how to follow the promptings of the Holy Spirit living in you to walk in faith.

[00:29:49] You know, it's allowing, it's really allowing God to use your weaknesses, use your deficiencies and, and, and walk you through what he has in store for you. You know, you know, you see through the Bible, all these broken and useless people, all their deficiencies. You look at Moses who can't even speak, right? He can't speak. And he's called to go in front of the baddest man out there and say, let my people go. Right.

[00:30:18] God will use you in your deficiencies and your weaknesses. How faithful are you going to be? How obedient are you going to be? That's why it's so much more than a motivation from love out from a Sunday morning message. It's the inspiration of the Spirit of God within you. It's allowing that to lead you and guide you, to walk you through how you are to live. That's your every moment. It's your every moment.

[00:30:42] Your decisions, your steps, the words you speak to someone. It's really letting go and following the Spirit of God. Because in our human ability, we have so many ideas, we have so many answers, and there's the logical way of doing things. But sometimes God wants you to just say, be faithful. Trust me. Go and build a boat in the middle of this drought land and see what's going to happen.

[00:31:12] And then once the boat's done, the rain starts falling, you know? Yeah. Yeah. I think that's that. Yeah. You nailed it there. Definitely. Definitely. Because for some people, it's really easy to read and to study and to go in depth and research. But it's harder for them to have a conversation, right? And so when it comes to even opportunities to talk about their faith, they shy away because, oh, I'm not comfortable doing that.

[00:31:40] I can write you a 10-page paper on this exigent point, but I can't have a 10-minute conversation with you about what I believe. And it's not that it isn't hard to overcome those difficulties, but you're never going to grow and you're never going to learn if you don't put yourself in those areas that are difficult for you. You know, you hear a lot of time people say, oh, you know, it's hard for me to sit still and be quiet.

[00:32:09] There's so many thoughts roaming through my head. And I always think of be still and know that I am God. You take that time, even in your prayer time, to just take 5, 10, 15 minutes just to sit and be still, quiet your heart and quiet your mind and listen to what God has to say. And it's very hard for people because of the stimulus that we're used to. We're used to being on our phone. We're used to having the TV on in the background or music playing in our headphones.

[00:32:35] We're used to multiple things going on at the same time. And to really quiet ourselves or do something different, that's a challenge. And that's okay, too. But it's about putting yourself in those positions to work on your weakness. Like when we were coaching, one of the things growing up in grade 7 and 8, grade 9 would be like, can this person do a left-handed layup? You know, it's very simple. Right hand, most of the kids were just no problem. Maybe the footing was wrong.

[00:33:03] Maybe it didn't get up high off the backboard enough. Fine. The left-handed layups were incredible. You'd see they start off and they use the right hand, the left-hand side say, nope, pull the whistle. Left-hand dribble, left-hand finish. And immediately you could see the divide of those kids who understood how to do it, which there weren't that many, and kids that need to work on it. And there's no shame in saying, hey, this is something that I need to work on. This is something that I want to work on.

[00:33:29] The shame part comes in recognizing that and saying, I'm not going to work on it because now you're limiting what God is going to be able to do through you. I was going to say, the kids that you really see excel, they're the ones that are wanting to get into the gym outside of even the scheduled practice times, right? They want to practice it. They have a desire to do that. And the more you practice reading the word and spending time with God, I've encouraged

[00:33:57] if you don't know where to start to spend time with God, exactly what coach is saying, go throw on some worship music. Go just be quiet and still with the Lord. The more you do it, the more your desire will grow because you'll see the reflection in your everyday life. You will. You'll see it in how you speak and how you walk and interact and all that you do. You will. So it's exactly that process of the more you put in, the more you're going to get out of it. And you're also going to think like, you know, sometimes you sit in bed and it's dark and

[00:34:26] you just start thinking of all the mistakes you've made. But the more you desire and the more you pursue God, the more you're also looking at like, oh man, this was a great answer to prayer. I didn't even realize. Or this was something that somebody was talking about. And I know I have an answer for this because I talked about this other person and they gave me a great idea that comes from God. Or, you know, you start thinking about the positive things that God has done in your life. And all of a sudden you're like, oh, it's totally good to bed. I got to sleep and you're out.

[00:34:56] Versus the times we were thinking about all the negative thoughts, all the bad experiences and you stay up, wake up and you turn, you toss and turn. You recognize God's presence the more you pursue it. And like I said, when we coach, it's always amazing to me the difference from day one to the last game. The ability of the kids to grow, even the ones who are still dangling and awkward through

[00:35:23] several months of practice and concentrated effort and desire to grow, they become closer and closer to a finished product. They learn more about themselves. They learn about what are my limitations? They may think they can only do this. But after three or four months of basketball almost every day, they're here. You may think, oh, God can only do this with me. Why are you limiting yourself? God took a stutterer, led his people out of slavery, right?

[00:35:52] There's so God took Job who had everything. Let the devil take most of that away. And if not all, and he still was obedient and he gave them, he gave Job more than he could even hope for. God asked Abraham, give me your son, the son that you cherish above everything else. Abraham was faithful, was about to sacrifice his son as God told him to. And out of nowhere, there's this ram. And what did God say? Your descendants will be more than the stars.

[00:36:21] Just think like you can't limit God based on your own quote unquote deficiencies because God made you in his image. He's got a plan for you. And quite often our own humanness gets in the way. So don't be like the NBA. Don't fumble. Don't fumble the bag. Stick to the script because that script from God is going to open up so many new doors for you guys. I'll just say one more thing.

[00:36:47] The almost next step into going from a rookie level, this is like a mature step for you. When you know you have failed, when you know you have fallen short, it's actually such a great place for you to learn and grow from instead of hold on to and be burdened by. Just like all those kids that we were talking about that we coach, they had to learn through their failure.

[00:37:17] I had to learn through my failure. You know, when I lost my, I think it was grade 11, that grade 11 basketball, not NBA championship, the Winnipeg basketball championship. We, that hit me hard. That was the first time I really failed because we should have not failed, but I failed and I either could have gone, hey, let's forget this game. I'm done. Or am I going to take this, learn from it and grow from it? Same thing with your Christian journey.

[00:37:46] You're going to fail. How are you going to then take the next step to get better? Now, one last story before we wind up for today. I remember it was grade seven. We're, we're having tryouts with a 7-8 team with Bartel and Rempel. And, uh, I mean, we played five, six basketball. It wasn't real. It wasn't a thing. I remember we were running a zone. They were running a zone against us. And that little pocket between the three point line and the key, I set up there. And every time I would shoot from there, Matt Toomes would come out of nowhere and block me.

[00:38:16] Not just a little tip, not just a little tip, an absolute destruction of a block. And it happened like six or seven times in over two or two days. And Rempel was finally like, what are you doing? And looked at him like, what do you mean? You've been blocked so many times by Matt doing this. What have you learned? I looked at him. I'm like, I don't know. And that's probably why I got cut that way that year, because I couldn't figure it out. I couldn't learn from my mistakes. Luckily, thankfully, God worked the way that he kept.

[00:38:45] They kept a few of us for a practice team. And I learned so much that year. But it's like, you're right. It's through your failure that you will learn. And not only will it impact your life, but you'll impact others as well. And one thing I've kind of caught myself saying the last little bit is, I've made so many mistakes that I'm happy to impart the wisdom that I've learned. I'm only 38. Like, you know, I'm not old, old. But compared to some of the people I'm talking to, I'm like ancient. But it's recognizing that, you know, I'm not perfect.

[00:39:15] I don't have to be perfect, but I'm not perfect. I've made a lot of mistakes. But sometimes that's good because there's people who need to hear that. They may look to somebody older and be like, oh, man, he's got his life together. He's got a great job. Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Like, bro, if only you knew. Yeah, Coach, I'll correct you in one thing. It's not there's people. That's everyone. Everyone needs to learn that. Every single person. Yeah. Come on. Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely.

[00:39:43] And you never know what you're going through, how that's going to impact somebody else's life down the line. So there's definitely people listening to us who are going through a challenging time. There's definitely people who are listening to us who will eventually go through a challenging time. Just remember that if everything in the world abandons you, God will stay true to you. So put your hope in Christ and cling to him. I know that's been our story. I hope it's yours, too. Amen to that. Coach, let's wrap up. All right.

[00:40:10] Make sure, as always, for all you old heads out there, check us out on Facebook. Like, subscribe, share us on YouTube and all your other socials. Give us your Insta on Instagram. Give us your comments. What do you guys think of All-Star Game? Is Draymond great or is he out of his rocker? And check us out on X. Check out the website. Urban Hope is there as well. Great, great cause. We love you guys. As you say every Sunday, love God and love others. This is our way of loving you. So have a great week.

[00:40:41] And we'll catch you next week. Peace. Peace out. We're...